A LONG-lost Vincent Van Gogh painting that spent years in an attic was unveiled yesterday at a museum which had previously rejected it because it was unsigned.

“Sunset At Montmajour”, the first full-size canvas by the Dutch master discovered since 1928, was put on display at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. It depicts trees, bushes and sky painted with Van Gogh’s familiar thick brush strokes.

It can be dated to the day – July 4, 1888 – because Vincent described it in a letter to his brother, Theo, and said he had painted it the previous day “on a stony heath where small twisted oaks grow”.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience

Museum director Axel Rueger

Experts also authenticated the painting by style, the physical materials used and said that they had traced its history. Museum director Axel Rueger described the discovery as a “once-in-a-lifetime experience”.

The museum had rejected the work in the 1990s, partly because it was unsigned, but new research techniques and a two-year study convinced them it was genuine.

The painting now belongs to a private collector. The museum did not disclose how the painting had been recovered but said it had been owned by a Norwegian man who kept it in his attic after being told it was not an original.